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Marketing Eye Blog Articles
A week of discovery in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, Argentina, has led to a new discovery of my own: that the world is full of surprises.
Caught up in the hustle and bustle of a city that boasts more than 14 million people, Buenos Aires is the hub for the world’s best polo players, Malbec wine, salsa dancers and beef.
You cannot live by normal rules if you travel to Buenos Aires, because the city simply won’t let you.
From the availability of buying the Argentine peso at a rate that is not less than half of what you would get buying it on the street, to the ability to eat at a reasonable hour – Buenos Aires asks you to take a risk, and that’s what the 400 entrepreneurs who graced an EO conference at Alvear Palace do every single day.
Before writing this, I thought long and hard. My first concern was the relevance of this to my journey that I share on this blog. The second is because you either love Angelina Jolie or you hate her. No one seems to be indifferent.
I don’t write about celebrity for the simple reason that I don’t think any celebrity, sports star, politician or business person is better than the person sitting next to them – they simply have chosen different jobs. I have never been in awe of anyone in particular, although there are quite a few people I respect immensely – but those people, I know well.
I never have my photograph taken with a person considered a “celebrity” at a party, event, dinner party or social gathering - I simply don’t see the point. I possibly will never see them again, so why would I want a reminder of someone I don’t know? Is it so I can show my children (if I ever have any) or friends that really matter, that I stood next to a celebrity for a photo?
So, to call one a role model feels kind of weird – but in this particular case it is justified – for me at least.
Angelina Jolie has it all. She was born into a pedigree Hollywood family, growing up in Hollywood with wealth and influence. She attended her first Oscars as her father’s date when she was just 13 – her first real taste of light bulbs flashing and photographers yelling “look here”, “look at me”, “Angelina”. It must have been daunting, but today, I am sure it is like water of a ducks back.
She started modeling and acting quite young starring alongside her father in Lookin’ to Get Out (1982), but it wasn’t until her first major film role in Hackers and television films George Wallace and Gia (both award winning roles for Jolie) that she started to become known.
Your bounce rate may come second in your book to other metrics such as number of visits or page views on your website, but it is something that many small businesses can leverage if they put it to the forefront.
After checking the Marketing Eye google analytics account yesterday, as I do every day, I paid special attention to how the website bounce rate was going. I had just been to a number of my client's google analytics accounts and noticed that theirs ranged from 35 percent to 80 percent - depending on whether they allow Marketing Eye to do their SEO and invest in creating content to drive connections.
For those who are uncertain what a bounce rate is, it simply is a record of the "bounce" that occurs when a visitor goes to your website, reads a page or looks at a page, then leaves your website. A "bounce rate" is the percentage of total visitors that come to your website that then bounce off of it.
Theoretically, the lower your website's bounce rate, the better your conversion rate, or at least the higher the potential conversions, because more of the people who visit your website like what they see, and click around on your content.
According to Weidert Group, 'a good bounce rate would be anything under 50-60 percent. A large factor influencing bounce rate is what kind of page you're looking at and what the content is on that page. If a page links to other pages, say, products you make or services , then a bounce rate of above 60 percent wouldn't be out of the norm.'
Today, as I was making a post on Facebook with one of my marketing blogs, I noticed a headline from one of my friend's wives: "I lied to my child."
Apparently, as I read further, she had lied to her child by saying that she couldn't wait until her 5 year old started school, when really she knew that she would miss her dearly and would prefer for her small, adorable young daughter to continue to stay home.
There are many types of lies, but statistics show we all tell several lies per day, often without realizing it.
Lying is so common, yet for many of us including me, it drives us crazy.
Last night I had the opportunity to attend an event at JWT Atlanta, the best experiential marketing company in Atlanta and one of the most experienced and creative agencies in all of the US.
They put together events every other month, bringing together people from the marketing and advertising industry.
I really enjoy going to their events as they have quality speakers and as a company, JWT Atlanta is as inspiring as any of the people that they have present. Their office space is uber creative and their people, so much fun, that even I want to go and work there.
Yesterday's speaker was Kevin Carroll, the founder of Katalyst. To say that he is inspirational, passionate and above all, a game-changer is an understatement.
Humbled by an employee discussion in our Atlanta office, I was pleasantly surprised that given the hypothetical situation of winning the lotto, all employees said that after a brief holiday, they would want to come back to work at Marketing Eye.
The engagement level on a day-to-day basis in our Atlanta office is very high – not to say, other offices are not the same. Company culture is everything and there are many reasons why it has a direct impact on bottom line.
There are a number of lessons learned from having a start-up in Atlanta that is inherently different from other offices we have.
The first being that all employees have chosen each other
Usually, a senior manager or myself makes the ultimate choice on who is going to join the team and in what capacity. Instead, in Atlanta, I have been over-ruled twice, and both times, I had to put my hand up and say that my choice would have been wrong for the team.
They are happy to have a job that offers career advancement
There is not a small business on the planet that hasn't heard of Twitter, yet many are still failing to execute a social media strategy that cleverly integrates Twitter as a social media platform designed to connect and communicate key messages.
Co-founder Jack Dorsey, a 36 year old tech titan, and now CEO of small business payment technology, Square, has built his billions on knowing what small businesses want and need. Square is the fastest growing small business payments technology in the world today, and through his small business meetings in Town Halls throughout the US, Canada and Japan, #letstalk, he is educating small business owners to talk and support each other, rather than work alone.
Five years ago, I was invited to play in a Pro-Am on the Gold Coast, and as a casual golfer, realized that I needed some coaching to ensure that I didn't embarrass myself.
Marketing Automation - Why small businesses need to get onboard
Oct 25, 2013 Written by Mellissah Smith
Interestingly, after speaking with a number of marketing automation vendors in the past few weeks, it has become apparent that there is one clear contender for the top marketing automation spot - and that is Marketo.
I saw an invitation today to attend a masquerade ball in Toorak on 1st November, 2013.
Everyone looks a masquerade ball! The opportunity to dress up and be a bit mysterious is just too alluring. I have quickly rung up a group of my friends and put a table together. While there are heaps of events to go to at this time of year, I would much prefer to save myself for the Black Velvet Masquerade Evening at Lincoln of Toorak, than make it all the way out to the track where I need to toss a coin as to whether it will rain, be cold or be so hot that I end up with third degree burns.
It took me a few minutes to realise that this ball is all for a good cause. While Cancer and Mental Health causes are very popular, its the one's that fall down the way-side that really need our help.
Epilepsy is dear to my heart. Growing up with a brother that has epilepsy brings back some raw memories of how much this disease affects people's lives and ability to live in normal society.
There are 225,000 Australian's living with epilepsy and more than 50 million people worldwide are expected to be diagnosed with epilepsy at some stage in their lives.
For those who have not been able to learn about the pitfalls of epilepsy; it is when the seizures are unprovoked and recurrent - in other words, happen more often than once.
It has a profound social, physical and psychological consequence and people living with epilepsy live in fear that it could happen anywhere, anytime. Medication is the only option but is full of side-effects, directly affecting a persons quality of life.
So, if you can get a few friends together and want to support a good cause put on by Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria, then get a table together with some friends and help raise some valuable funds for research into epilepsy. DJ Grant Smillie is playing (Awesome!!!) and he is supported by Nick Foley and WOOHAH DJ's. It's only $60 - cheaper than a ticket to the races and much more worthwhile.
SAVE THE DATE: November 1,2013
TIME: 7.30pm-2.00am
PRICE: $60
According to the World Health Organisation, epilepsy is the world's most common serious brain disorder. Let's support helping this worthy cause.
The presentation on "How 10 Brand Leaders Are Redefining Their Customer Relationships" talked to the crowd of about 30 or 40 people on how important it is for marketers to take mobile marketing seriously.
According to the invite;
"Mobile now sets the bar for brand relevancy, and Urban Airship is leading the shift from interruption-based marketing strategies to personalized, invitation-geared messaging."
Brent Hieggelke, a man that clearly knows what he is talking about, pulls from years of research done by his firm on best-practices for employing digital wallets, apps, location data, and targeted customer insight to drive meaningful, and profitable, brand engagement.
"Top power brands aren't just building consumer connections, they're redefining the context."
If you think about it, as Hieggelke says, your customers are spending 80% of their time on mobiles or smart tablets and they love apps. As much as consumers download apps, their attention spans are short, so its highly likely that after 30 days, they will delete it and be onto the next best thing, namely because smart phones have limited real estate.
What apps allows B2C marketers to do is forge a direct relationship with the consumer and understand them at a level that has never been available to do so before. By downloading an app, customers are giving you permission to access data on them so that you can tailor your message to the end-user and ensure that you are one-to-one marketing at every touch point.
Hieggelke gave 5 key points at the presentation as to what to consider when using mobile marketing. Here are 3 of them:
1. Create a real utility for the customer. For example; news
2. Location is the the mobile game changer - you can now do push notifications based on what location the consumer is at, enticing them to buy or experience things in close proximity.
3. Not every push deserves a shove. Sometimes a push notification can be taken the wrong way by a consumer and the damage of that is that within seconds, your "shove" may mean that you go viral on twitter or other social media platforms.
Mobile is a marketing mind shift and its notable that cuotmers love their mobile devices and use every available minute to look at them. How often have you been out of drinks with friends to find that the conversation has stalled because everyone is checking their mobile phones or that while you are waiting for the restroom, instead of just standing in line, you are quickly checking your messages or getting an update on the news?
So, developing a mobile app strategy is no longer something that "others" do, but a marketing platform that every business whether you are B2B or B2C needs to think seriously about.
To prepare for the mobile mind shift, your mobile strategy needs to evolve and it must centralize around the consumer and what their needs, likes, wants and desires may be.
About Ideas Tools : JWT Atlanta
CLEVER is a JWT Atlanta art, performance and insight series revolving around leading innovators, independent thinkers and creative visionaries. CLEVER is ideas made kinetic.JWT Atlanta
Inspired by collaboration and innovation, JWT Atlanta operates an integrated suite of strategic, creative, digital, technology, media, production and analytics services. We rely on data and strategy and daily multidisciplinary collaborations to identify and quickly take advantage of opportunities for growth within our client partners; markets and categories.
I am not sure about you, but I have often been completely dumb-founded by the way some employees believe the world revolves around them and working for an organization isn't a two way street. I am sure every entrepreneur and business owner can attest to having at least thought this at some point in their business life.
The truth I have learnt - the hard way, I might add - is that all employees have employers up against the wall.
We all know:
- It's easier to work with what you have and less costly then employing someone new
- Hire slowly, fire fast
- One negative person can cause a virus
- Performance is linked to employee happiness
- Some employees feel "entitled" and there is nothing you can do about it other then put bandaides on it
As we sat down and enjoyed a bite to eat and a glass of wine, I began to talk to Chocko about Ashrams in India. I have been wanting to go for some time and wanted his insight into which ones were the best to investigate.
Chocko is a spirital man - and although he didn't say as much, I could tell. I gravitated to him and before long we talked about different aspects of spiritality. He then mentioned that he read handwriting. Within seconds I was writing on a napkin hoping that he would pass on some wisdom about myself that would enlighten me.
He said:
"I am level headed and connect well between my head and my heart"
"I need to celebrate my highs more"
"I have discovered myself, but not other people"
All fairly harmless stuff - after all, Hannah Montana was a Disney brand, wholesome and pure that teenage girls the world-over could relate to.
Then something happened. She grew up. From teen idol to woman and that's where it all began.
Like Madonna before her, and Kylie Minogue for that matter, Miley Cyrus, the former sweet teenage girl that played Hannah Montana wanted to evolve her brand image and take it to the next level. If she would have kept up the wholesome image, it probably would have ensured that her brand diminish over time. Instead, she reinvented her brand. First it started with a number of selfies in proactive poses creating headlines. Then it was the picture of her smoking pot which I would imagine was not by accident - instead just part of a brand evolution.
From Marketing Eye's website, we had a lead last month from Industrial Maintenance Group. They were interested in our industrial marketing expertise and were looking for a refresh of their brand and website, as well as ongoing marketing.
Industrial marketing is very different to traditional business to business marketing. It is very important to think about who is receiving everything from a business card through to a direct mail piece or a visit to your website.
When we looked at Industrial Maintenance Group, we realized that they stood out in the industry. The owner, Wes Schollian, works on the tools while his senior management team does most of the business side of things like bringing in new clients and marketing.
The reason Wes does this is to ensure that the best possible job is done every single time for his clients.
Our job is to get this act of "precision" out into the market place and communicate why Industrial Maintenance Group is the number one choice for fabrication, industrial services, recycling services and the purchase of balers, screw conveyers and recycling equipment.
Industrial Maintenance Group Brand
Marketing Eye's brief was to create a brand that ignites the sense of perfection in the fabrication, industrial maintenance and services, and recycling products and services.
